


Fancy Footwork

by coldturkey



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Crack, Gen, Nonsense, Silly, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-05 13:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11014644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldturkey/pseuds/coldturkey
Summary: Like all good, self-respecting elves, Ellana Lavellan wore footwraps.It turns out you shouldn’t touch mysterious black orbs with your feet.The mark is on the Herald of Andraste's foot. That makes dungeon interrogations awkward, and closing rifts hard.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank Beckily ([Ao3](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Beckily/pseuds/Beckily), [tumblr](https://beckily.tumblr.com/)) for her artistic rendition of [Lavellan's foot stabilizing the breach](https://beckily.tumblr.com/image/174923212747). 
> 
> It is beautiful. Thank you. <3 <3

Things at the conclave were not going as expected. For one, Ellana was fairly certain that scattered corpses weren’t dignitaries in the Templar-Mage war. Two, there was a really ugly looking shem shrieking about sacrifices down the hall.

_Stupid Shems can’t do anything right._

She ran forward and down the hall only to discover that old woman the humans revered as the Divine held by greying hair. “ _Fenedhis_ , what’s going on here!?”

“Hurry, you must stop him!” The old woman cried, and Ellana grabbed one of her throwing daggers and sent it flying.

She’d been aiming for the creepy guy’s right hand. Instead she hit his other hand, the one with the black sphere. He let out a shriek, forgetting about the woman entirely, as the orb flew from his hands towards her, clattering and rolling across the floor.

“Stop her! Kill the elf! Obey your god!” Ugly shem pointed with his injured hand, which was then clutched by his non-injured one to support the point.

His minions jumped to action, moving towards her with weapons drawn, and the old lady scampered towards her, half throwing herself at Ellana for protection. “Save me!” _Yikes._

The important black orb was about to roll past her, and she kicked out a foot to stop it. Like all good, self-respecting elves, she wore footwraps. It turns out you shouldn’t touch mysterious black orbs with your feet. There was a flash of green light, an explosion, giant spiders, then everything went black. 

When Ellana regained consciousness, the first thing she felt was pain. Her foot felt like it was on fire, and she cried out in agony. Tears rolling from her eyes, she grit her teeth. She was still trying to come to terms with the unspeakable agony when the pointy swords and angry ladies showed up.

“You murdered the divine! The conclave is destroyed!” The tall shem spat, “Tell me everything!”

Ellana blinked several times, brow furrowing as she got to her feet. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything!”

“If that were true, then how do you explain -this-!” The woman reached down and grabbed Ellana by the ankle, yanking her foot up into the air.

Ellana needed that foot for standing, and she lost her balance, back hitting the hard stone. She looked up at the woman holding her glowing green foot with wide eyes. “I don’t have a clue what that is!”

“Liar!” The woman shrieked, foaming from the mouth like a rabid mabari. Ellana just wanted her foot back.

Then a shorter, accented shem put a hand on the angry one’s shoulders. “We need her.”

And that was how Ellana ended up in front of this gaping great tear, with a strange bald elf grabbing her foot and pointing it at the rift. She, once again, had fallen down.

“Can people stop grabbing my foot!?”

He ignored her, instead saying, “I am Solas, if there are to be introductions. I am pleased to see you still live.”

“That’s fancy talk for ‘I kept your glowing foot from killing you while you slept’.”

They introduced themselves, but she was more concerned with the idea of having to fight demons while trying to close the giant hole in the sky with her foot. Feet weren’t made for that sort of thing. But she didn’t have a choice, so when it was time to open a rift and seal it properly, Ellana awkwardly lifted up her foot and tried to tug.

It was trying to pull her forward, she was trying to pull back. It was all very difficult on one foot. She hopped around, swinging her sword and daggers. Pain almost blinding. She tried to shut it, the effort so strong she collapsed backward, leg up in the air as the pull of the rift tore at her very essence. But she had to close it, she must. She stretched her foot to the sky, straining, until everything went black.

Once she’d woken up, some squeaky flat ear broke a bunch of glass and said the shem wanted her in the chantry. Kept calling her the ‘Herald of Andraste’.

Outside it only got weirder. As she walked towards the Chantry, none of the shems were wearing shoes. They cheered and called out to her and each other in fervent adulation.

“They say her foot was kissed by the Maker!”

“She walks the path of Andraste!”

“Blessed be the toes that guide us!”

“Her footprints light the path!”

This would be the last time she went anywhere barefoot.


	2. Puttin' One Foot In Front of the Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellana refuses to take of her shoes, and the Inquisition takes drastic actions.
> 
> Oh yes, there's another one. It happened. 
> 
> Is it funny? No idea.  
> Absurd? Most likely.  
> Nonsense? Definitely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why does this exist? I don't know.
> 
> The last one was written around 5-6am, so this felt appropriate.

“No, I won’t do it!” Ellana repeated, crossing her arms over her chest.

“It will only take a moment!” The foaming mabari woman named Cassandra begged. Ellana had been told the woman was a Seeker of truth, whatever that meant. It sounded like a shem problem. “You have to take them off eventually, and the people need to see you!”

“They can see me all the time! I’m right here!” Ellana yelled waving her arms. The woman was looking at her foot. Again. Why couldn’t people see her for who she was, instead of her foot? She was a person!

Cassandra got to her knees, and Ellana wasn’t fooled. The woman thought she could be sneaky, trying to get her bear paws on her shoes. She was seeking her foot, and Ellana would not allow it. “Please, we need to see you. _All_ of you. You give the people hope, something to believe in!”

It sounded like the line her brother, Mahanon, used to get all the pretty girls into his aravel.  

“By the Creators, I won’t allow it!” Ellana could see the paws inching closer, trembling and desperate towards her left foot. She snarled and pulled her leg back, hiding her feet safely under the covers of her bed.

“You must see reason,” The creepy smiling shem said. She called herself a left hand. It was disturbing. Ellana felt no comradery with the woman, or her hand. Whatever limb she’d given to the _shem_ Maker was of no importance to Ellana. “You cannot hide your foot forever.”

“I can and I will!”

She tried, but the shems were determined. They grew more desperate with each passing day, and even began talking about their mother. Ellana did not think the two women looked alike, but she was not about to tell them so. Sometimes a woman strayed from her bond mate – Ellana had heard of such things.

They asked her to save their mother, and she did. But they could not have her foot.

When a desperate _shem_ , overcome by worship and emotion, tried to grasp at her foot, prostrating himself on the ground, Ellana fled to her room.

When she would not leave the cabin assigned her, they sent the bald elf man. The shems were not subtle, and she saw the way they pushed him into the room before closing the door behind him.

His name was Solas, but he was like the others – eyes always downcast. Longing for her foot. He sighed heavily, as if he did not want to be there. But he did. He yearned for her foot too. She knew.

“Herald, would you please take off the shoe. At least for matters of sleeping and bathing. This is not sanitary. Shoes are not meant to be worn while one bathes and sleeps.” He spoke as if a wise man, a Keeper, and there was truth in his words.

It was true that the strange leathery contraptions the humans loved felt strange immersed in water. They did not allow much air, and the squishing sound they made was bad for moving silently. And yes, her feet did get warm at night, encased as they were.

When Ellana said nothing, he spoke again. This time a confession. “It is beginning to smell.”

She did not know why he looked so solemn. Apologetic. He had grabbed her foot like all the others.

Another week and she relented. Not by choice, but by force. They had come in the night, stealing away her precious _shemlen_ shoes. She awoke in terror, held down as they worshipped it and its green glow. Their eyes gleaming and eerie in a mix of reflected candle and ethereal light as they washed between her toes.

The two mad sisters, who had given their hands to the Maker had come for her. She cried and pleaded, begging them to stop, but they ignored her. Scrubbing and clipping. Anointing.

It was torture she endured. Her _Mamae_ had taught her to be strong.

After that they had starved her out. She was naked without the coverings. Shoeless.

But hunger clenched her insides, and she was no coward.

Determined to enjoy the succulence of a hot meal, Ellana opened the door and stepped out. Barefooted to them. She walked with steadfast determination towards the chantry where the weird sisters dwelled, shutting out the shrieks of excitement at her appearance.

“She walks, left foot first! As the Maker demands of us all!” A man pointed, shuddering in ecstasy.  

“Look! I’m walking in her footsteps, as she walks in Andraste’s!” A woman announced behind her.

There was a clamoring, and Ellana looked behind her to see several bare footed shems all struggling to her door, bustling to follow her with each step she made.

“Left foot first, it is Andraste’s will!”

Ellana scowled, and realized no one was wearing any shoes. The shems had abandoned them. As she squinted up to their sacred building, the flags had been replaced. No longer was it a sacred sun, but a foot afire. Her foot. _They are mad. All of them._

She moved faster, breaking into a run.

More were spilling forward behind her, the crunch of snow underfoot making it easy to follow as they matched her for each step. A macabre line of bodies that writhed and flailed for threat of losing their balance as they desperately tried to follow in her footsteps.

People threw themselves at her from all sides, faces to the ground as they pleaded for her touch.

“Walk upon me oh Herald of Andraste, and bless me with the guidance of the Maker!”

“I am weak, stomp the teachings of Andraste into me!”

“Your footfalls give me strength, empower me!”

She dodged each of them, weaving between in a desperate attempt to escape the shemlen madness.

The Chantry doors grew closer and she burst through, panting, and slammed the doors behind her.

Anger bubbled up inside her as she saw the stunned silence of the Chantry sisters. Their eyes on her foot. Always her foot.

“I’m up here!” She shouted, pointing at her face, and several of them jumped. “Now give me my shoes!”


End file.
